Solis

Water washed through the wound, ice and all. I was glad the disease had not reached my arteries, but the tears in my muscles were far too painful. A rock hit against me, sending shooting pains up my side. I groaned, helpless. Another wave dove over my head, bringing frost to ice into my ears. I hissed and held close to the round rock parting me from life and death. 

The stars above me cascaded in my mind, the blackness of the night riding over me like a knight’s horse, galloping on my chest. The water mimicked it beautifully, the agony and all. 

A wave forced me under, and suddenly I felt it. Pain, fatigue, loneliness. It only sharpened, and the water made it worse. It pulsed like a heartbeat through each vessel screaming at sharp and flat pitches. I wanted nothing more than to get rid of it. They weaved through my body and turned my blood into ice. I clawed at my throat and the water rushed through my nose and I screamed. Bubbles surrounded me as I caught a glimpse of the never-ending surface. 

I should’ve been rising towards it, but something was pulling me down. The light at the top gleamed, taunting. Water, wicked and icy, filled my lungs, and my throat itched. Spots touched my vision at all edges. The reddish water, red with my blood, suddenly shifts. 

Hands reached towards me, grabbing me under my shoulders. 

I didn’t know what sane thought caused me to dive headfirst into the high tides of the river, but it seemed to ease the bulging green veins growing on around my forearms. The poison inside was suffocating me more than the water. I wished to stay here, encompassed in this strange warmth, but I pushed out of the river with weak arms, helping whoever it was. The hands took some weight off from the fatigue I had felt in the last few days. 

Letting out a guttural noise, I slumped onto the shore, gravel greeting me harshly. I had no strength to pull my legs out, so I just laid there, water trickling down my soaked shirt and spine. 

There was yelling up ahead, but after a few minutes, I realized that the sound was from on top of me. Screaming my name, over and over. I dumbly fumbled my arms around until I found a jumble of limbs on my left side. They dragged me farther away from the shore with grunts of effort. 

“Kilorn!” An eerily familiar voice hissed. It was a faint but beautiful noise. One I knew too well. 

I forced my eyes to adjust to the darkness and made out her shape. Her curved eyes, dark eyelashes, her open mouth, and troubled face. I laughed a bit. Seems weird she would feel troubled for me. 

“You’re bruised and half-dead, and now you laugh?” Sifa lightly flicked my arm, her hands working to check my wounds. “Seriously, I thought you would at least weep a tear.” 

We were normally separated from each other and being away from her for weeks at a time was normal. But it didn’t mean I liked it. 

She examined my arm, and I felt her breath warm against my skin. God, she was beautiful. “Wouldn’t weep a tear in front of you,” I flashed her what I hoped was a dashing smile. 

“Men,” she muttered, “always so preoccupied with their fake confidence.” 

She pulled out small green leaves and crushed them in her palm. Precious juice came out and she trickled them onto my cuts. Pain gasped like a treacherous snake through me, but I held it in. I felt a tight pressure on my wrist as she wrapped a white bandage around my forearm. 

She suddenly pulled back, gasping. She was silent for so long that I eventually had to ask her. “What is it?” 

Sifa took a breath in and said slowly, “Why is there green?” She looked at me, her violet eyes gleaming fiercely. “Why do you have green blood?” 

“I’m a lizard,” I chuckled weakly. 

She didn’t return a laugh. Not even a sympathy smile. 

I sighed, taking my hand away. “It’s not green blood,” I cast her a sidelong glance. 

It took her a second, but the horror dawned on her face. I hadn’t meant to keep secrets from her, from Sifa. 

“No,” she whispered. She punched the dirt viciously and threw the bag of herbs against an oak tree with such force, leaves showered down on her. One caught her hair, but she didn’t seem to notice. She turned to finally. It was a slow movement, a careful one as if breathing would shatter the Earth. “It was me, wasn’t it?” 

Her breaths were measured and deadly. She was a murder – she’d killed so many. But they were not out of anger or even vengeance. They were calculated and smart. But the victims deserved to die. They were all terrorists, every one of them. We did them together, as a team. 

“It was me,” she whispered. “I told you to stay away,” a tear rolled down her cheek. Something inside me broke. I didn’t like seeing her cry. I wiped it away, but another one joined it, and then another. “But you didn’t listen, you stubborn skiv.” 

I reached my hands up and took the leaf from her hair, a strand of it clinging on. I let it fall, and helplessly put my arm back down, but she caught it, holding my wrist tight. 

“Now don’t cut off my circulation,” I joked weakly, “I might need it if I was to live. Besides-” 

“You are going to live!” she yelled, punching my arm. The hit hurt more than it should have, but the fatigue from the disease over the last few days was drilled into my body, slowing every movement down. She stood, her eyes two boring into my skull, no sympathy in either of them. “Get up,” she hissed. 

I sat still, not budging, and she screamed and punched me again, and again, and again. I took them blindly, not budging. I held my hand up catching her fist, blood seeping from my cut.  I stared at the green, murky blood on my hand until a drop of water diluted it clear once more. The punches dulled to aching pain and a strange warmth spread around my chest. Sifa was there, sobbing in my lap, her arms limp by her side. 

Seeing her like this was unsettling. It left both of us a wreck in the middle of the forest floor. I didn’t like it, and neither did she, I could sense it. 

She looked up at me, a strong wind pushing her hair into my own face, but I sat still. This would be the last time I would ever hold her, see her, touch her. 

Kiss her, a voice at the back of my head whispered. 

“Sifa,” I shifted, “hey, Sifa.” 

She stared at me as I brought my hand up to her cheek, so softly.  

The silent thumping of feet echoed off the tree branches and Sifa shot up, nearly causing me to topple over. A flash of red zipped from the trees, and I couldn’t tell if it was the Red Army or my own blood clouding my vision. 

“They’re here,” I said, trying to keep my voice down. I got up with Sifa’s help, my legs sore and weak from the disease. She slid an arm around my waist and half dragged me behind a tree, as she stumbled over to grab branches with heavy greens dying from the edges. The mid-summer wind blew past us, seeming to wither Sifa’s delicate form. A crackle of energy somewhere in the distance brought my vision to the unlit part of the forest, where more soldiers await. They hadn’t seen us yet, which gave us the opportunity to surprise. 

“Sifa,” my voice raspy and detached, like parts of a memory clinging to the past. She continued to drop branches on me, shielding me from the view. 

“Don’t move,” she lugged a birch branch over my feet. 

“Sifa.” 

“They’re advancing from both sides, but they never attack head-on,” she jumped to avoid a ditch and grabbed a handful of leaves and spread them around the forest floor. “They’ll wait for us to come to them. Once I go out, you run to the banks of the river. Go east to Aldave and seek refuge there. Remember-” 

“Sifa,” I grabbed her hand, and she turned to me sharply, breaking out of my lock, but I grabbed her other wrist, and we stared, tangled in each other's arms. 

She strangled and kicked me, hissing out curses. “Get off, you idiot. The Red Army is right around the corner-” 

“Stop,” I breathed out sharply and sat back, taking her with me. She tumbled and fell into a load of branches, a soft grunt escaping her. I hugged her close, and her hands were strangely cold, enveloped in mine. She opened her mouth to protest but I cup my hand against her mouth, refusing to let her speak. She fell limp. “The cure. Do you remember what Sir Farey had told us?” I didn’t wait for her to respond. “A- 

“Don’t say it,” this time Sifa pressed her hand against my own mouth, keeping the word both she and I feared. Her violet eyes were so dark now, an abyss that I longed to be pulled into. The color had come as a comfort and as a warning in my mind, not to get too close. Our fates forbid it. Love was not written on mine, nor hers. Only death. Death, death, death. 

Sacrifice, a cruel voice echoed in my mind. I shivered. It was all witch magic. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. It was the only way to save another person. 

The splash of feet in dark waters uncoiled the lump in my stomach, turning it into a snake, hissing at me to run. I pulled Sifa up with me, who was now limp on her feet. The streaks of light were now slowly peeking out from the horizon, creating an amber line of blood separating the steep gorge and the sea in the distance. I tried walking forward towards it, but the weight of hands held me back. 

A tight pressure lurched me backward, and I fell straight on my back. Sifa ran like a bullet towards the rocks surrounding the drop. Panic rose like wildfire inside me. “Sifa, no!” I roared and jumped on top of her, rolling the impact with her in my arms. She screamed and hit me square in the jaw, forcing my hands to let go, but I hooked her legs and kept her face in the dirt. I groaned and thrust my arm over the ledge, rocks scraping my arm. 

“Kilorn, you bastard come back!” Sifa rolled over and grabbed me in a chokehold, instinct forcing my hands to hold my neck. I struggled for air, my legs flailing from under me. “I’m trying to save you, you idiot! Let me do my job!” 

I finally managed to gain purchase and rolled backward, grabbing the small handgun in my back pocket. Sifa tried once again, running towards the gorge, but I hit a pile of rubble, letting it explode into her. Her small frame flew, and I winced at the crunch her ankle made as it hit contact with the ground. I pushed myself out from under the ledge of rock and rushed to the edge. It looked like gold from here, the gorge. The bottom of it was out of my sight, covered by the hands of gentle mist. 

I reached my foot out, and I fell. The weightlessness of it caught my breath and I closed my eyes. But suddenly, as I was letting go, the descent got faster, as if the speed tripled. My chest suddenly convulsed backward, and I was being pulled up. A hard surface crashed into my back, and I thought I had hit the ground until I realized the mist was beneath me. A drop of red-green liquid dribbled down from my lips as I coughed, and the mist parted ways for it to pass into the depths. 

A black coil was wrapped around my midsection, letting me dangle from the edge. I looked up behind me and saw Sifa’s face clenched with effort with keeping me in her grasp. The wire on her end was almost squeezing her body, a small line of red was leaking from her black clothing. A strong gust of wind swayed us to and from the ledge that was supporting a small bit of my foot, and she grunted, her broken ankle holding her upside down. 

She exhaled shakily, her eyes darting to the opposite ledge, where a dark clump of red soldiers gathered, shouting orders into the air. I tried to shake out of her grasp, but her fingernails dug sharply into my skin, literally holding my hand in her fingertips. “No,” she breathed. “Please, no...” 

“It’s ok,” I croaked, my voice low and rough. I let go of the breath I had been holding, it comes out somewhere between a cry and a chuckle. A different pain stabbed my chest. I needed her strength. I needed her stability. I needed... I needed her. 

“Why,” her voice cracked. “Why would you do this?” Her lips parted slightly, and a sob escaped it, betraying her fierce grip on me. 

It’s strange. I would die for her, and she would kill for me. 

At least I hoped. 

Her face fell and a single tear ran down her cheek. It came from her left eye. Pain. Pain for what? For her own family gone? Pain from the disease? From the failed mission? 

For me? 

She is close enough that I can make out the eerily serene color of her eyes. An electric shock went through me. I don’t know why I still feel this way about her. I shouldn’t.  

But I do, anyway. The recklessness of my own life weighs on me, and for once, I welcome it. Our fates divide from here, but our spirits never will. That is my promise. 

“For you,” I whisper, the sentence a piercing note on my lips. “It was always you.” 

I let go of her hand, the joint thread of my heart unraveling our past and stepping into our future. Into the heavens. Into the sun. 

“For you.”